if you've ever been in a situation with an avoidant where you know that they care about you but they just won't step up and fight for you this video is for you so on the surface it seems like they just don't care enough to make an effort but the truth is that's not the full story and there's a lot of hidden dynamics at play avoidance have a completely different way of dealing with emotions and relationships and once you understand what I'm about to share with you in today's video their behavior will make so much more
sense to you firstly avoidants aren't comfortable with emotions especially their own emotions so they weren't taught how to process or express their feelings so even if they miss you or they want to reach out they won't know how to say it they'll overthink it they'll worry about being vulnerable they'll wonder if there's any point reaching out if it's been a while they'll start thinking that maybe you won't want to hear from them and eventually even if they had the impulse to reach out all of that overthinking will stop them from reaching out and they'll decide
that it's better not to say anything at all avoidance take immense pride in being independent self-sufficient and not needing anyone so if they chase you or fight for the relationship that would mean admitting to themselves that they miss you and they're not satisfied with their lives without you and they don't want to admit that they're struggling without you it would completely go against their own self-image of someone who is self-sufficient and happy by themselves and so even if they are hurting or they do miss you their pride and fear of looking needy can stop them
from reaching out to you a lot of avoidants secretly feel like they're not built for relationships and deep down they might believe that they can't give you the love and the commitment that you deserve so instead of trying to work on their own issues they convince themselves that letting you go is for the best and it's not because they don't care it's just that they don't believe that they can show up for you in the way that you need and therefore you should be with someone better and there's a deep unworthiness wound at play that
avoidance have whereby paradoxically the more they love and admire you the more they would feel like they're not worthy of having you and so it creates this sort of opposite effect the more they love you the less they would want to fight for the relationship because they just don't believe that they deserve you another factor is that avoidance carry a lot of guilt and shame they view themselves as inadequate and defective in relationships and they feel bad about causing their partner emotional harm and so they're thinking you know I've already caused her so much pain
already i'm never going to do that again avoidance aren't psychopaths or narcissists they take it immensely personally when they cause pain to someone they love and they deeply internalize that shame and it causes them to feel really bad about themselves it also triggers in them a feeling of helplessness because they don't know how to fix the problem and that sense of not knowing what to do and being the cause and the source of their partner's pain is very distressing and deeply uncomfortable for an avoidant and so when they don't fight for you in their mind
they're really trying to protect you from themselves and also the pain that comes along with being with them so for example one of the last things that my avoidance ex said to me was "You're not going to be happy with me me getting out of your life will be the best thing that ever happened to you." And I think that statement is revealing it reveals a lot about how the avoidant thinks he's essentially indirectly saying to me that you deserve so much better than me i shouldn't get in the way of your happiness because I'm
not going to be the one that will be capable of making you happy and there's a lot of defeat that the avoidant feels because they really want to make their partner happy they care about their partner but they just don't know how and that sense of failure and not being good enough is a very distressing feeling for them and it's very triggering for them to process because in childhood they learn that they weren't good enough for their caregivers and so in relationships when they feel and sense that they're failing to meet their partner's emotional needs
it triggers that same childhood wound and it makes them feel like they're reliving their deepest fears that no matter how hard they try they will never be enough and instead of confronting these emotions they just completely disintegrate internally and they can't handle it and so what they do is they shut down so this one is a big one avoidance do miss you they do think about you they open up their phone they look at messages is they look at old photos or do things that remind them of you so that they can still feel connected
to you in some sort of symbolic way my avoidant ex once told me that he would do things that reminded him of me he would travel to places that we used to go he would buy my favorite foods he told me that he would stare at my WhatsApp photo and kiss his phone screen and so there's this deep sense of longing that they feel when you're gone but they won't fight for you because there's a battle going on in their mind that stops them they want to reach out but their fear of getting pulled back
into a relationship and something really emotionally intense keeps them from acting on their feelings this is probably the most important reason for an avoidant longing for you from a distance is actually less painful than being in a real relationship and that sounds weird but when they're thinking about you and they're reminiscing we've missing you they still get to feel connected to you in some way it feels warm it feels good and they get to remember and relive all the good times but they also get to feel safe because they don't have to deal with the
real life consequences of being in a relationship and they don't have to feel suffocated or infringed upon they get to have their own space and being in a real relationship would mean dealing with their triggers and dealing with somebody else's emotional needs and expectations and also the fear of getting hurt but from a distance they get to have just enough connection to you without actually having to confront their own issues and that is why no matter how much they might care about you or think about you they won't actually fight for you and the final
reason is that a lot of avoidants have this subconscious belief that relationships should be effortless and they think that if there's tension or if they have to fight for you then it means that it's just not the right relationship and it's not meant to be they won't try to fix things or make things work because they want a relationship that is no maintenance that's low pressure and that doesn't demand too much of them emotionally if they find the relationship emotionally draining they'll see it as a sign that it's not going to work out and that's
why they withdraw instead of fighting for the relationship the painful paradox for an avoidant is that they do care they do long for connection but the moment they feel like they're failing they retreat their fear and their self-p protection mechanisms are stronger than their desire to be close to you so when an avoidant doesn't fight for you it's not necessarily because they don't want you is because fighting for you would mean confronting everything that they've spent their whole lives running from and that for them is terrifying so I think it's important to humanize the avoidant
and understand their pain that doesn't mean that you should accept or settle for an unhealthy relationship dynamic with them but I think it does help you to understand that they are going through their own pain and it's not just the um anxious attacher that is going through pain if you're in this type of dynamic the best thing that you can do is focus on you focus on healing your own attachment wounds you will likely always be the one fighting for the relationship if you continue to be with the avoidant um and you'll always be the
one feeling like you're putting in all of the effort over time it will cause you to feel drained and depleted so I highly recommend that you take some time to step back and focus on healing yourself so that you can attract a healthier and more fulfilling relationship in the future i hope this video helped you please let me know if you have any video requests or questions in the comment down below thank you so much for watching and I will see you in my next video bye